Star Wars (1977) and it's
surprising success re-animated a whole bunch of concepts for sci-fi
films that were already declared dead by studio executives before they
even went into production. Some of these concepts were quite promising
and ultimately became hits themselves. Ridley Scott's Alien
(1979), being only the most popular example for this kind of re-animated
concepts, was obviously one very strong influence for Star Wars'
production designer John Barry's own sci-fi project Saturn 3.
Barry envisioned the story of a couple living in a remote base on the
third moon of Saturn when one day a weird technocrat arrives with his
robot hector in baggage, who is going on a rampage once let loose.
Problems with his lead actor Kirk Douglas and the film's producer
Stanley Donen forced Barry out of the project shortly before his death
and Donen took over the directing duties. The incredibly camp tagline
"there is some 'thing' wrong on Saturn 3" became representative
for the entire production, which looked like a badly executed Alien-spoof
by the time it hit theatres and caused more laughs than scares.

The score:

Elmer Bernstein just never had a good
hand for choosing the right projects when it comes to science-fiction.
Saturn 3 at the dawn of the 80's must have been a
'back-to-the-roots' experience for him, bringing back memories of his
earliest film scoring days in the 50's with trashy low-budget flicks
like Cat-Women Of The Moon (1953) or Robot Monster (1952).
He never scored a purely sci-fi film since these early days, so scoring
Saturn 3 was certainly a challenging and ultimately thankless task
because huge portions of his original music ended up unused. This was to
become an unwritten law with several of his other scores for mainstream
films with sci-fi elements during the 80's, be it Heavy Metal
(1981) or Ghostbusters (1984). Although the rejection of most of
the score, including the love theme, probably isn't so surprising if you
look at the troubles during the production but the main reason becomes
even more obvious by actually listening to Elmer's music. The score is a
very bizarre creation and not necessarily in a very good way. It sounds
like a mixture of typically epic Bernstein scoring, a bit of disco funk
that comes right from CHiPs (I kid you not!), a gentle love theme
that later became Tarna's theme in Heavy Metal (1981) after being
dropped entirely from Saturn 3 plus a huge amount of often
nonsensical suspense music that fails to scare or thrill and sometimes
even makes occasional use of Jerry's score for Alien (1979).
Needless to say the combination of all these elements form a very
bizarre and unbalanced but occasionally entertaining listen.

The lengthy 9 minute opening cue "Space
Murder" basically introduces all of these odd elements. It contains the
main title which basically plays over a pretty ridiculous special
effects opening shoot of a space station crawling slowly through space.
Elmer responds to this Kubrik-goof with a bold and somehow menacing low
brass fanfare against a rumbling percussive backdrop. As soon as the
station's inner life is explored (again, with a clumsy effects shoot)
Elmer suddenly switches to Californian Highways with upbeat disco music
coming directly out of CHiPs (1979-1981). I really don't know
what drove Elmer here but the sudden turn of style is still
entertaining, albeit in a confusing and odd way. However, I can see (or
hear) why this moment remained unused. After the disco beats finally
drop to silence and the big fanfare briefly returns, percussive and
menacing suspense music takes over for the introduction of Harvey
Keitel's evil scientist character. Quick strikes of brass and percussion
note the murder of a crewmen from the station in typical Elmer Bernstein
fashion. The suspense music develops into the introduction of the love
theme. If you ever wondered what Tarna's theme sounds like without an
Ondes Martenot, you need to look no further. The melodies are basically
100% identical while the Saturn 3 version uses a female choir and
a slightly different coda.

"The Lab" is mainly atmospheric stuff
for harp and woodwinds, passing by with little to say. "Meet Hector"
begins a bit more lyrical but still remains mainly in atmospheric, and
later suspenseful mode with a quickly playing 4-note motif on synths
creating a mechanical pattern to musically represent the robot. The
lyrical parts were dropped from the film while the suspense stuff was
tracked into various moments. "The Brain" opens with romantic woodwinds
that were once again dropped from the film, continues with suspenseful
music for xylophone and glockenspiel literally tuning up to the moment
when the robot is coming to life. "Blue Dreamers" is another case of 'CHiPs
in space' with disco music accompanying a drug trip sequence as source
music. "Hector Mimics Benson" has the orchestra playing out a slow,
suspenseful ostinato-like structure to support the ridiculous looking
machine hector with some menace. The way Elmer uses pizzicato strings in
"Peeping Toms" is certainly a homage to Jerry Goldsmith's score for
Alien (1979). Eerie strings, male choir and bells continue the
suspense with occasional atonal outbursts. Somehow, it occasionally
sounds like a lightened-up, Bernstein-ized version of Jerry's "The Droid"
from Alien (1979). Especially the second half of the cue has a
sneaky and menacing motif for low woodwinds that gives a deja-vu of
Jerry's horror classic. "Adam's Target" brings typical, simplistic
Bernstein action music with percussion and male chorus pulsing to an
eruptive conclusion. More simplistic action/suspense music comes at the
beginning of "Benson Is Off" interrupted by some whirling orchestral
panic.

"Training Hector" has a pulsing
heart-beat as a basis which is soon joined by the electronic 4-note
robot motif from early on and occasionally builds up along with anvil
strikes and male chorus as the evil robot stalks the couple. "Adam Saves
Alex" opens with a rather ridiculous sneaky motif for woodwinds before
snares erupt to accompany Adam's heroics. The sneaky motif returns in
"Hector Loses It", barely audible though it develops into a lengthy
suspense cue which once again has some strong influence from Jerry's
Alien (1979) in the way it builds tension. "The Run" is a rather
short suspense cue consisting of low strings, flute and xylophone with
another snare march during its second half. After more suspense stuff at
the beginning of "A Head For Hector", Elmer Bernstein briefly returns to
his stronger romantic lyricism for strings. A kind of Main Titles
reprise comes at the beginning of "Alex" where the score's opening
fanfare is used in a much more menacing way while the ending of the cue
has a subtle, lyrical passage for harp and strings. Low piano and other
suspenseful orchestral figures, occasionally interrupted by very subtle
statements of the love theme, are foreboding Hector's finale. Orchestral
figures are whirling around low brass statement of the robot theme and a
final brass outburst is heard as Adam destroys the machine. "End
Credits" is the usual summary of the score's main ideas with the love
theme sandwiched in between statements of the opening fanfare.

RATING:

Score as
heard in the film:
55%

Score as
heard on CD:61%

TOTAL:
58%

The presentation:

Nothing except a secondary market CD
with shabby sound has ever been released from Elmer's Saturn 3
score until our heroes at Intrada records saved the long lost masters
and released this music as Volume 36 in their Special Collection series.
Well, it was not only our heroes at Intrada but also Lukas Kendall from
Film Score Monthly and Elmer's son Peter Bernstein who helped making
this release possible. Shows once again how small the world of film
music really is. The sound quality of this world premiere release is
very good and blows the bootleg away. It even contains more music but
it's not really perfect (yeah, what really is?). Occasionally, there is
tape hiss and slight volume drops which Doug Fake explained as anomalies
resulting from the slow tape speed of the archival master from Elmer's
private collection. Anyways, you have probably all heard far worse
sounding CDs before this one, so sound quality really is not a big
problem. What bothers me a little is the sequencing. It's understandable
when several short cues are forged together into longer tracks for a
better listening experience but juggernaut cues of 6 to 9 minutes are a
bit inhuman when you probably just want to pick out a single moment
without having to fast-forward the whole thing. At least there are no
cross-fades. The liner notes by Jeff Bond and Douglas Fake about the
film, the score and the album production are greatly informative and the
complete cue breakdown with its extensive descriptions is a big plus.
All in all, Intrada's presentation hardly leaves any wishes.

Presentation by
the Label:90%

Summary:

Elmer Bernstein has hardly composed a
more bizarre score in his entire career than for Saturn 3. You
can feel it in the music that he never really felt like being at home
with science-fiction because the score just seems to stumble along from
idea to idea with a handful of occasionally entertaining moments but
never really creates enough focus to be fully entertaining as a whole.
There is some solid big epic music but not really that much. There is
funky disco stuff which mostly feels out of place despite being
entertaining on itself. There is a huge amount of cold, mechanical
suspense music for the robot which is far from self-sustaining but
occasionally interesting. The lyrical and romantic material contrasting
the cold suspense stuff is certainly the best aspect of this score but
if you have heard Heavy Metal (1981) you have heard it all
before. The latter part of the score was dropped entirely from the film,
leaving only the few epic and cold suspense parts which renders the film
version useless because the score lives from that contrast between human
warmth and mechanical coldness. Therefore, the music can work better on
CD where this contrast was re-created by Intrada's excellent
presentation, bringing the score to life as Elmer intended it but his
work is still lacking of focus due to a rather bizarre mix that feels
mostly incidental. Folks who always wanted to know what Tarna's Theme
from Heavy Metal (1981) sounds like without an Ondes Martenot and
all those hardcore Elmer-fans should give this score a listen. Others
might sit through and end up rather confused.